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Thursday, March 15, 2007

On 14 March, Euforic and CONCORD organised an awareness session on 'new web' applications for use in development settings. Building on Euforic experiences with tools such as blogger, del.icio.us, google calendar, and feedburner, the course gave participants a general awareness of these tools and also insights into ways that other organizations in development are using them in creative and effective ways.

The session was fully booked, with 12 participants from various types of organisations (NGOs; NGO networks; ACP-EU institutions). After an introduction to the subject, including illustrations and demonstrations, participants explored some popular 'web2.0' applications for themselves, assessing and discussing their potential usefulness.

In general, participants found the workshop useful and inspiring, providing lots of ideas on how to improve their current information and communication strategies. Appplications like wikis, blogs and RSS seem to 'make things easier' and 'allow a much better information exchange'; in particular, they seem to offer powerful opportunities as far as 'bringing information from people on the field' is concerned, let alone the possibilities to work collaboratively on shared documents.

The challenge is then to understand the potential of the 'new web' and being able to tailor the use of these applications to the specific needs of each organisation and person.

The workshop forms part of the Euforic 'web2share' initiative; to know more, visit Euforic's projects page.

1 comment:

Linda Lonnqvist
said...

Here at INTRAC we've also participated in a similarly inspiring session on live web usage. Nosing around the various applications, it seems that there are a myriad different tools available, some of which overlap, and of varying compatibility with each other. Eg. jetpack and del.ici.ous seem to do the same thing. I'm sure some applications will begin to stand out from the crowd as usage picks up. Meanwhile, we can't get away from the basics: even online networking and communication works according to human rules. The more effort you put in, the more you get out, and online interaction is as time-consuming as other modes of interaction. Still -we are positive!

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